


Definition of 'Good'

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [34]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, No one is surprised, Purely platonic with romantic hints for Merle only, cant stop won't stop, good person is not a worthwhile person, in which Sandr surprises no one by once again being introspective, look! Another character study!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: You are not a good person.It's a good thing no one expects you to be.(Or: the deconstruction of the social concept of 'good'.)





	Definition of 'Good'

**Author's Note:**

> I should just accept that all I'm ever gonna write are character studies. Tis the truth.
> 
> Also yay no money. -_-

You are not a good person. This is something you can easily admit because you are, as previously stated, not a good person. You're a liar and a thief. You only care about yourself. You put on airs to hide your insecurities and pull at other peoples' to dismantle them like cheap fantasy LEGO knockoff towers. You derive pleasure from causing enough pain in others to drive them away from you. You are, after all, not a good person.

You are a coward and a bully. You're 'good out here' but when you're not, you arm your words with the most potent venom you can produce and shoot to kill. You killed before—forty-some-odd people vomiting their insides out, calling for help, arms outstretched, as they died from a meal you made—and you don't fucking care anymore. Blades and spells are less messy than nightshade any day. And you ran then and you'll run now. You are not a good person in the slightest.

You are egocentric and greedy. If it's not nailed down, you'll take it with you and if it is nailed down, you'll pry it up and take it anyway. All that glitters is lucre and lucre pays the bills that you've been running from. You may as well be a dragon with how you hold on to your hoard and viciously attack anyone who tries to take it from you.

You don't care about anyone besides yourself. It makes things complicated when more than one person exists so? Fuck it! Just you. No one else. That's all you need anyway. Other people are pawns and pieces to move and manipulate until they're where you can use them best. And you're all charm and wit so it's easy—and when it's not, Charm Person is a good backup.

You are untrustworthy and cowardly and fickle and vain and egomaniacal and envious and inherently a liar through and through. No one should ever help you because you are, as you stated, not a good person. You wouldn't help you either.

(But Magnus takes spin after spin on the wheel and forgets and gives up and he tells you it's okay that you are hesitant to give up beauty of all things!)

(But Merle gives life for you and you breathe easier as your wounds stitch up and _fuck_ that old man looks so goddamn proud.)

* * *

You are not a good person. That's easy for you to say because you know what good people look like, what they sound like, how they act. You do none of these things. You do none of it.

You are bullheaded and brutish. A good person would think things through or try and talk with their foes but no—you rush in. That's your MO and no one moves to stop you, if they even could. You've even gone so far as to knock down doors with brute force and win a poison-ingesting contest against a lockbox! That's beyond thoughtless!

You are violent and prone to fits of temper. You mask your rage with smiles and joy and exuberance but, when it comes down to it, you're just angry. All the time. And when you lose your grip on things, your fist becomes a wrecking ball as you slam it into the nearest hard object. Sometimes it's a wall, sometimes it's a person who was irritating you, sometimes it's your own head. Doesn't matter. Pain is clarity anyway.

You are reckless and, at the same time, a massive coward. Death is nothing. Death holds promise for you, so you rush in as one does and smile and whoop and holler but—people have died _for_ you. _Because_ of you. In _spite_ of you, even. That weighs on you but you continue to soldier on, seeking death and leaving it in your wake. Neverending, this torment of living.

You are impulsive and foolish and brutish and loudmouthed and careless and fake and you don't care about living one bit. You don't see yourself as anything worth saving because what else does life have for you but more pain? You don't matter; they do. Their lives are more. You certainly wouldn't save you, that's for damn sure.

(But Taako casts True Sight on you and you see that lich and the sick fucks running Wonderland and you understand, for a moment, the gravity of things.)

(But Merle loses an eye and life and life and life so that you all can continue and when you insist you're fine, swats your hand and tells you to fucking stuff it.)

* * *

You are not a good person. You know what good people are and what they do because you are a man of the cloth but a good man? _Ha_! Maybe in the next life.

You are a coward. Responsibility is thrust upon you time and time again and you turn tail and run. You leave your commune to live on the beachside. You leave your wife and two kids because it's dull and boring, the monotony of domestic life. You leave your god on a whim because he doesn't care. No one does? Why bother?! Fuck it.

You are a liar by trade and force truth on others. It's your signature; Zone of Truth. Make others speak the painful things they hide with honey when you yourself can't even admit you care for two idiots that you met through Craig's List. You can't even admit that you're so afraid of being left behind that you'll run to spare yourself the pain. You can't even admit that you feel like no one values you. You can't admit that you feel like there's a hole in your chest where someone's love sat. You just lie and lie and lie.

You are a layabout and a fool. You like to pretend you do so much but, given the opportunity, you'd much rather smoke a joint and eat cake until you pass out than exercise. You hold tight to worldly pleasures—a fucking cleric who can't give up fucking and alcohol and drugs is a fucking charlatan for sure—and brag about it. You are earthly at best and slothful at worst and you refuse to change. You're too old, after all, to start learning new tricks. Why fucking bother? And everyone who loves you shakes their heads but jokes on them! You're not worth it.

You are a liar and a deadbeat and a fraud and a faithless motherfucker and a cruel asshole who wears sincerely like a whore wears shifts. You aren't long for this world with your habits and no one will miss you when you're gone so who gives a fuck? Certainly not you. You're not worth it.

(But Magnus takes hit after hit for you and you watch the fool bleed himself dry keeping you on your feet and you scream at him because he's worth so much more!)

(But Taako, sharp jabs aside, wasted a spell slot on saving his ass from being run the fuck over by a battlewagon and also summoned the coolest fucking steed ever.)

(Yet Magnus is cast from his body, content.)

(Yet Taako throws his soul after him, magnanimous at last.)

(Yet, Merle calls his god down to aid his friends and pulls them from the grip of the astral plane.)

(Yet, arms outstretched, they help one another.)

* * *

They are not good people. No one really is; it's a social construct. But they are trying, arms outstretched, to grasp a better them.


End file.
